Agenda and minutes

With effect from 1 April 2016 Agenda and Minutes will be available
in both Welsh and English. Reports are working documents and
produced in English only in accordance with Welsh Language Standard
41 of this Council’s Final Compliance Notice from the Welsh
Language Commissioner.

Members
are reminded of their responsibility, under Paragraph 11 of the Members’ Code
of Conduct, to declare the existence and nature of any personal interest in
respect of any of the business to be transacted at this meeting

Minutes:

The
Deputy Monitoring Officer provided advice to Members in relation to the
following item of business:

Agenda
Item 4 – Members’ Remuneration:

The
Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that all Members appeared to have a personal
and prejudicial interest in respect of Agenda Item 4 which dealt with Member
allowances and it would be advisable that they all declared such an interest in
this matter. All Members present agreed to declare a personal and prejudicial
interest in Agenda Item 4 but claimed the exemption against it being a
prejudicial interest contained in paragraph 12(2)(b) of the Member Code of
Conduct.

To sign as a correct record
the Minutes of the Meeting held on 6 September 2018.

Minutes:

The
Minutes of the meeting held on 6 September 2018 were submitted.

RESOLVED – That the Minutes
be of the meeting held on 6 September 2018 be signed as a correct record.

Matter
Arising:

Item
36 Webcasting of Council Meetings:With
reference to the Committee’s recommendation to Council to lease a webcasting
system for Meeting Room 1, the Chair had met with the Leader of the Council
prior to the Council meeting held on 26 September 2018 to further progress this
matter.The Leader had indicated his
strong commitment to extending the webcasting facility to include all Scrutiny
Committee meetings, however, he was of the opinion that the Council Chamber
would be a better venue due to its size, layout and fact that the webcasting equipment
was already in place.The Chair
acknowledged these comments and taking into account the Council’s financial
position, accepted that this would be a more prudent way forward.

Therefore,
prior to the Council meeting, all Members of the Democratic Services Committee
were e-mailed to seek their agreement that the proposed use of Meeting Room 1
for the webcasting of meetings no longer be pursued.

Having
received no adverse responses from Members of the Democratic Services
Committee, he informed the Leader of the Council accordingly.

The Leader of the Council
(Councillor Mark Pritchard) commented that he was in full support of extending
the webcasting of meetings of the Council as this provided greater transparency
and openness within the democratic process. The webcasting contract renewal in January 2019 would provide for the
webcasting of all Scrutiny Committee meetings from the Council Chamber subject
to the availability of the Chamber and any other practical issues during the
remainder of the current municipal year, and this would be extended into
2019/2020.

(Members declarations of interest in relation to this item are set
out in Minute 38 above)

The Head of Corporate and
Customer Services submitted a report (HCCS/56/18) which enabled consideration to
be given to the changes to the Members’ Remuneration Scheme proposed within the
draft Annual Report of the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (IRPW) in
order to inform a response to the consultation by no later than 27 November
2018.

The Acting Legal Democratic
and Registration Services Manager introduced the report and outlined the key
proposals to increase the basic and senior salaries for Elected Members for the
financing year commencing April 2019.The IRPW were required to take into account the representations which it
received on the draft before issuing its final version of the report.

During discussion the
following matters were raised in particular:

·A number of
Members expressed disappointment that the IRPW had completely ignored previous
representations made by many Local Authorities, including Wrexham County
Borough Council, not to increase the level of remuneration for Members.

·Several Members
found it difficult to justify any increases in payments to Members especially
during a period of continued austerity in public sector funding resulting in
cuts in service budgets and increases in Council Tax.In such circumstances no pay rise could be
acceptable.

·With regard to
senior salaries paid to Executive Board Members, no reference had been made to
the workload associated with individual Lead Member portfolios.

·Several Members expressed concern on the potential adverse publicity any
increases in Members’ payments would attract in the local media and the
implications this could have on the public confidence on the work being
undertaken by the Council.

·The IRPW Report did not provide sufficient advice to enable Memberswho have child-care, personal support needs
and or caring responsibilities to carry out their duties effectively as a member
of an authority.Annual reports tended
to concentrate on pay and incremental increases year on year.

·The Chair
commented upon the role of Councillors as community leaders and, in a time when
the disposable income of many residents was declining, this could be on
opportunity for Members to exercise self restraint and to recommend that the
proposed increase not be accepted.

·The Leader of the Council reminded Members that the Local Authority had
no discretion in terms of determining Members’ remuneration, that was the role
of the IRPW.However, if an individual
Member wished to forego part or all of his/her salary they could do so by
giving written notice to the appropriate Council officer or make donations to charities
or local causes.He then explained that
the procedure for submitting comments to the IRPW would be by a written letter,
the contents of which he would share with the Chair of the Democratic Services
Committee prior to despatch.

RESOLVED – To recommend that the letter from the Leader to the IRPW
tocontain a section incorporating the
views of this Committee, these being:

The Head of Democratic
Services submitted a report (HCCS/57/18) which enabled Members to review the
Protocol for the webcasting of meetings.

In introducing the report,
the Acting Legal, Democratic and Registration Services Manager commented that
the revised Protocol took into account the Council’s ICT & Digital Strategy
2017 – 2020 and a copy of the Protocol was attached at Appendix A to the
report.

During consideration of the
report Members raised the following points in particular:

·It was noted that
there was a presumption within the protocol that Members and officers have
given their consent to being filmed / recorded unless a specific request has
been made to the Monitoring Officer to the contrary.Public speakers may withhold their consent to
appear in the webcast, however, their comments will be webcast.

·With reference to
the longer term storage and future viewing of webcasts beyond the six months
currently provided through Public-I, clarification was sought on whether the
Public-I webcast was in a format that could be stored on the Council’s YouTube
channel, and that no information would be lost as a result of the transfer of
the webcast.

·The Acting Legal,
Democratic and Registration Services Manager confirmed that a review of the
longer term storage of Council webcasts was being undertaken.In addition, to accessibility, GDPRStorage Limitation Principles needed to be
taken into account when considering the length of time the Council retained the
archived webcasts.

·To mitigate the
risk of inappropriate use of webcast clips, the Council would retain copyright
of the material and the ability to request irretrievable deletion.

·It was suggested
that a Member training session on how data can be extracted from the webcast be
arranged.

·There was a
general consensus that the webcasting of Council meetings displayed openness
and transparency in the Council’s decision making process and supported the
vision in the Council Plan of being a strong and inclusive community leader.

RESOLVED – To recommend to Council that the revised
Protocol for the webcasting of meetings be approved.